The past is the set of all events that occurred before a given point in time. The past is contrasted with and defined by the present and the future . The concept of the past is derived from the linear fashion in which human observers experience time , and is accessed through memory and recollection . In addition, human beings have recorded the past since the advent of written language. The first known use of the word "past" was in the fourteenth century; it developed as the past participle of the Middle English verb passen meaning "to pass."
23-531: [REDACTED] Look up past in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. PAST or Past may refer to: past , the totality of events which occurred before a given moment in time Past tense PAST (Poland) (Polish: Polska Akcyjna Spółka Telefoniczna , Polish Telephone Joint-stock Company ), a defunct Polish telephone operator PAST Foundation , an American educational foundation PAST storage utility ,
46-506: A long arm is not the same as an extended arm ). Synonyms are also a source of euphemisms . Metonymy can sometimes be a form of synonymy: the White House is used as a synonym of the administration in referring to the U.S. executive branch under a specific president. Thus, a metonym is a type of synonym, and the word metonym is a hyponym of the word synonym . The analysis of synonymy, polysemy , hyponymy, and hypernymy
69-421: A certain point (the train station). Alternatively, the sentence, "He ran past us at full speed," utilizes the concept of the past to describe the position of someone ("He") that is further than the speaker. The "past" is also used to define a time that is a certain number of minute before or after a particular hour , as in "We left the party at half-past twelve." People also use "past" to refer to being beyond
92-751: A distributed storage system Pan African School of Theology (PAST), Nyahururu, Kenya Primeval Structure Telescope (PaST), a Chinese radio telescope Summit Airport (Alaska) (ICAO airport code: PAST) Past a sculpture in Washington, D.C, by Robert Ingersoll Aitken PAST: The Newsletter of the Prehistoric Society See also [ edit ] The Past (disambiguation) Past and Present (disambiguation) Past tense (disambiguation) Yesterday (disambiguation) Then (disambiguation) Present (disambiguation) Future (disambiguation) Topics referred to by
115-586: A form of onoma ( ὄνομα 'name'). Synonyms are often from the different strata making up a language. For example, in English, Norman French superstratum words and Old English substratum words continue to coexist. Thus, today there exist synonyms like the Norman-derived people , liberty and archer , and the Saxon-derived folk , freedom and bowman . For more examples, see
138-457: A particular biological age or phase of being, as in, "The boy was past the age of needing a babysitter," or, "I'm past caring about that problem." The "past" is commonly used to refer to history, either generally or with regards to specific time periods or events, as in, "Past monarchs had absolute power to determine the law in contrast to many European Kings and Queens of today." Nineteenth-century British author Charles Dickens created one of
161-624: Is coinages , which may be motivated by linguistic purism . Thus, the English word foreword was coined to replace the Romance preface . In Turkish, okul was coined to replace the Arabic-derived mektep and mederese , but those words continue to be used in some contexts. Synonyms often express a nuance of meaning or are used in different registers of speech or writing. Various technical domains may employ synonyms to convey precise technical nuances. Some writers avoid repeating
184-571: Is a word , morpheme , or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language , the words begin , start , commence , and initiate are all synonyms of one another: they are synonymous . The standard test for synonymy is substitution: one form can be replaced by another in a sentence without changing its meaning. Words may often be synonymous in only one particular sense : for example, long and extended in
207-571: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages past In English grammar , actions are classified according to one of the following twelve verb tenses: past (past, uses of English verb forms , past perfect , or past perfect continuous ), present ( present , present continuous , present perfect , or present perfect continuous ), or future ( future , future continuous , future perfect , or future perfect continuous ). The past tense refers to actions that have already happened. For example, "she
230-421: Is inherent to taxonomy and ontology in the information science senses of those terms. It has applications in pedagogy and machine learning , because they rely on word-sense disambiguation . The word is borrowed from Latin synōnymum , in turn borrowed from Ancient Greek synōnymon ( συνώνυμον ), composed of sýn ( σύν 'together, similar, alike') and - ōnym - ( -ωνυμ- ),
253-407: Is not on the action having been completed by the present moment, but rather on its having taken place actively over a time period before another moment in the past. The verb tense used in the sentence "She had been walking in the park regularly before I met her" is past perfect continuous because it describes an action ("walking") that was actively happening before a time when something else in the past
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#1732772595007276-436: Is used to describe actions that were already completed by a specific point in the past. For example, "she had walked" describes an action that took place in the past and was also completed in the past. The past perfects continuous tense refers to an action that was happening up until a particular point in the past but was completed. It is different from the past perfect tense because the emphasis of past perfect continuous verbs
299-411: Is walking" refers to a girl who is currently walking (present tense), while "she walked" refers to a girl who was walking before now (past tense). The past continuous tense refers to actions that continued for a period of time, as in the sentence "she was walking," which describes an action that was still happening in a prior window of time to which a speaker is presently referring. The past perfect tense
322-404: The context long time or extended time are synonymous, but long cannot be used in the phrase extended family . Synonyms with exactly the same meaning share a seme or denotational sememe , whereas those with inexactly similar meanings share a broader denotational or connotational sememe and thus overlap within a semantic field . The former are sometimes called cognitive synonyms and
345-730: The list of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English . Loanwords are another rich source of synonyms, often from the language of the dominant culture of a region. Thus, most European languages have borrowed from Latin and ancient Greek, especially for technical terms, but the native terms continue to be used in non-technical contexts. In East Asia , borrowings from Chinese in Japanese , Korean , and Vietnamese often double native terms. In Islamic cultures, Arabic and Persian are large sources of synonymous borrowings. For example, in Turkish , kara and siyah both mean 'black',
368-505: The Germanic term only as a noun, but has Latin and Greek adjectives: hand , manual (L), chiral (Gk); heat , thermal (L), caloric (Gk). Sometimes the Germanic term has become rare, or restricted to special meanings: tide , time / temporal , chronic . Many bound morphemes in English are borrowed from Latin and Greek and are synonyms for native words or morphemes: fish , pisci- (L), ichthy- (Gk). Another source of synonyms
391-791: The best-known fictional personifications of the "past" in his short book, " A Christmas Carol ." In the story, the Ghost of Christmas Past is an apparition that shows the main character, a cold-hearted and tight-fisted man named Ebenezer Scrooge , vignettes from his childhood and early adult life to teach him that joy does not necessarily come from wealth. The past is the object of study within such fields as time , life , history , nostalgia , archaeology , archaeoastronomy , chronology , geology , historical geology , historical linguistics , ontology , paleontology , paleobotany , paleoethnobotany , palaeogeography , paleoclimatology , etymology and physical cosmology . Synonyms A synonym
414-631: The former being a native Turkish word, and the latter being a borrowing from Persian. In Ottoman Turkish , there were often three synonyms: water can be su (Turkish), âb (Persian), or mâ (Arabic): "such a triad of synonyms exists in Ottoman for every meaning, without exception". As always with synonyms, there are nuances and shades of meaning or usage. In English, similarly, there often exist Latin (L) and Greek (Gk) terms synonymous with Germanic ones: thought , notion (L), idea (Gk); ring , circle (L), cycle (Gk). English often uses
437-502: The latter, near-synonyms, plesionyms or poecilonyms. Some lexicographers claim that no synonyms have exactly the same meaning (in all contexts or social levels of language) because etymology , orthography , phonic qualities, connotations , ambiguous meanings, usage , and so on make them unique. Different words that are similar in meaning usually differ for a reason: feline is more formal than cat ; long and extended are only synonyms in one usage and not in others (for example,
460-414: The offices of those who have previously served in an organization, group, or event such as, "past president," or, "past champions." "Past" can also refer to something or someone being at or in a position that is further than a particular point. For instance, in the sentence, "I live on Fielding Road, just past the train station," the word "past" is used to describe a location (the speaker's residence) beyond
483-451: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title PAST . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PAST&oldid=1183035270 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Articles containing Polish-language text Short description
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#1732772595007506-422: The same word in close proximity, and prefer to use synonyms: this is called elegant variation . Many modern style guides criticize this. Synonyms can be any part of speech , as long as both words belong to the same part of speech. Examples: Synonyms are defined with respect to certain senses of words: pupil as the aperture in the iris of the eye is not synonymous with student . Similarly, he expired means
529-474: Was happening (when "I met her"). Depending on its usage in a sentence, "past" can be described using a variety of terms. Synonyms for "past" as an adjective include, "former," "bygone," "earlier," "preceding," and "previous." Synonyms for "past" as a noun include, "history, "background," "life story," and "biography." Synonyms of "past" as a preposition include, "in front of," "beyond," "by," and "in excess of." The word "past" can also be used to describe
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